The Community Kitchen

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Inspiration

Donating with our parents at the local food pantries, we found that they were always out of specific items and left without a way to effectively communicate with the community. Many apps on the Apple app store or the Google Play Store, didn't allow for an easy way for local communities to communicate with these pantries and other donation hubs. This app can become a perfect way for kids, adults, and even the elderly to contribute to helping the needy and their community.

What it does

The Community Kitchen app allows you to do many tasks. One thing that you can do on our app is find a local food pantry in your local area and learn more about them. Another task that you can do is directly emailing organizations through the app. Lastly on our app You can create a list of food items that you would like to donate and share them to the organization that you would like to donate them to in order to see if they need any of the items you have. With our app you'll be able to get back to the community with ease and simplicity.

How we built it

To build our app, we use the many functions provided on MIT App Inventor. For the map section of our app, we use the web viewer feature, the map feature, and marker features for users to click on the marker on the map to view and learn more about the selected organization on their website. On the email inspection of our app, we used functions such as activity starter and sharing for donators to email there charities directly from the app. Finally, on the list section of our app we utilized list and sharing functions for people to create and share their lists with those they choose to work with.

Challenges we ran into

While designing our app, we first ran into the trouble of coming up with a concept. After donating to our local food pantry and talking to many of our parents, we finally found our idea to make an app for helping the starving community. MIT app inventor made it tough for us to get our ideas solidified, and with the marker and website feature being difficult to be maneuver we hit a block. After working with the program and watching many informative videos on youtube, we finally designed our app to fulfill our design plan of showing the many food pantries nearby. We ran into some trouble with displaying our ideas and making it look visually appealing but after meeting with Lenovo volunteer, Naimish Thaker and Roylan Shaff, they were able to give us a lot of advice on making the app more functional and more eye-catching. . With all of the challenges and time we put into fixing the app, we are able to provide an app that helps not only the food pantries but the community.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Over the time making our app, we have accomplished many things with our app. An accomplishment that we have made is the map and marker feature. It took lots of trial-and-error to figure out how to correctly show the website with the organization. However, with some teamwork and brainstorming we were able to come up with their final solution. Another feature that we are proud of is the emailing section of our app. At first, we wanted to create a forum for everyone to communicate on. After some coding, we realize that it would be better if our users directly contacted the organizations, in order to build good, long-lasting connections with the people that they're working with. Also, we love that people can share their list on multiple platforms and it ready at hand. Best cuts down a lot of stress with figuring out what you're going to donate. Lastly, we are most proud though we made an app that allows people to give back to the community in a carefree way.

What we learned

Over the past few months of designing our app, we learned that the task was not easy. Thinking of an idea, a design, and managing to rally our group members together for weekly meetings was a daunting task. But we learned that if you have a goal in mind, everyone will work for it. Each member has spent numerous hours and days perfecting the design and functionality of our app Community Kitchen. We have gone through hundreds of tests and revisions over the past months, and we learned that communication was crucial in making this development possible. At the end of this long developmental journey, we now know that giving up and laziness is never an option at achieving greatness.

What's next for The Community Kitchen

In the future, we are hoping to expand our app nationwide and even globally. We are planning to add more locations, websites, and features to make the app more user-friendly and appealing. Millions of starving families depend on the food pantries and their accountability, so people need to donate and provide for them. With that in mind, our app will make it possible for food pantries to never be short on food and will help feed families all over the world.